


Knowing Her

by speakertone



Category: A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder - Lutvak/Freedman
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Mild Angst, entirely based on sibella's line about lionel getting mad if she gains weight, mostly just sibella running away from her emotions because of course she does
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-19
Updated: 2020-01-19
Packaged: 2021-02-27 15:46:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,239
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22319590
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/speakertone/pseuds/speakertone
Summary: “Don’t give me that look. You know he only wants what’s best for me.”“I’m starting to believe I don’t.”-He knows her too well to let this go.
Relationships: Sibella Hallward/Lionel Holland (mentioned), Sibella Hallward/Monty Navarro
Comments: 2
Kudos: 9





	Knowing Her

“You’re leaner than I remember,” Monty says, holding Sibella firm by the waist and pausing in the middle of a kiss. She, of course, pulls back with a rather dry stare, putting an arm squarely between them.

“So indelicate. Is that any way to talk to a lady?”

“Oh, but you’ve never minded.”

“That’s hardly an excuse!”

“It’s only true,” Monty replies, making a move to close the gap between them and putting his hands back where they belong, one on either side of her waist. “It’s not only the corset, is it?” A hand makes its way up her side and onto her shoulder, rubbing circles onto it with his thumb. “Right here, your collar.”

Sibella frowns. “What about it?”

“Well, nothing really. Your bone juts out quite a bit more than I had thought.”

“And if it’s always been that way? I find that men are often indisposed to observe the finer details in life. I see no reason for you to care so much now.” She leans into his touch. “Not that I mind.”

“I’m certain though, you’re far more slender than the last time I saw you.”

“Does it bother you?”

He feels more than sees Sibella pull away from his chest, hands balled into fists between them. One rests right over his heart. 

When, after a breath, he hazards a look into her piercing eyes, he finds that she looks… afraid, beyond her usual measures of vanity. He could be wrong, there’s no doubt about that (it’s, quite frankly, often the case), but in the many years he’s known Sibella- more of his life than either of them would like to admit- he’s memorized every sliver of emotion she tries so desperately to hide behind sultry stares and quirked lips. 

He tries to push the thought away. “No, I wouldn’t say it does. Why?”

“Lionel says-”

“Oh, Lionel,” Monty says, words dripping with fresh vitriol, looking away and clenching his fists. His hands begin to drop to his sides, but Sibella grabs them before they fall.

“It won’t do you any good to interrupt. Let me finish, won’t you?”

“Very well.”

In spite of her words, Sibella looks sheepish all of a sudden, her eyes darting away from his. Her hands release his to smooth out her dress, deep red like most clothes she wears these days. “Pink isn’t my color,” she told him once, months ago, and he would believe her if he hadn’t watched her walk through the town square and gawk at a pink corset on display through a glass window. She fidgets, rubs a bit of velvet between slender fingers.

“...Lionel says he likes me better without dinner.”

“Excuse me?”

“Don’t give me that look. You know he only wants what’s best for me.”

“I’m starting to believe I don’t.”

“Well, alright, maybe he doesn’t, but I’m not one to complain.”

A beat. He quirks an eyebrow.

“Oh, Monty! Maybe I am! But how could I turn him down? How could anyone? He’s terribly handsome and he has wonderful taste in clothing. He chose this, you know.” She raises a hand to her neck, just barely touching the collar around it, black as pitch and velvet to match her gown. “He says it looks lovely. Don’t you think so?”

“What I think hardly matters. What about you?”

“I suppose I’m happy with whatever he likes.” She reaches out to him and pulls him in closer by his shirt collar, then smoothing out the wrinkles she had made. “I don’t love him, surely, but I hate to make him mad.”

“Why’s that?”

“I don’t come here to be interrogated. I come here to… well…” Her fingers walk their way along his chest and rest delicately on his shoulders. “You understand.”

“In a moment," He says, pulling away. "Are you afraid of him?”

“He’s my husband.”

“That’s not an answer.”

Sibella’s never been dense. Callous on occasion, but never dense, so she takes the hint and gives a heavy sigh, moving over to his bed and sitting down on the edge. She pats the spot next to her, so, naturally, he follows.

“What do you want me to say?” Her foot kicks aimlessly at the air. “I don’t care to upset him. If that makes me… cowardly, then so be it.”

She speaks like it doesn’t matter, like she’s bored by the topic or that it’s all baseless conjecture. Monty grips at the bedsheets and grits his teeth- foolish of her to marry him in the first place. Foolish of him to not raise an objection. Foolish of him to watch.

“You’re not cowardly, Sibella,” he says finally, but he can’t bring himself to look anywhere but his own lap. No, she’s not the coward here. “You’re not a coward to be a good wife to him, but… his ideal isn’t healthy. Or, at least, I don’t think it is.”

“I know that,” she says indignantly. “You must think me stupid.”

“I would never.”

She looks vulnerable now, and small.

“Monty…”

Sibella leans in to kiss him, chaste and soft, as if she had never done it before, and with great tenderness his hand finds its way on top of hers. It’s certainly strange of her, to kiss him like that, like she’s afraid he’ll not like it, like she’s courting a man who is so entirely, wholly hers, but still, he smiles when she pulls away and bites her bottom lip, eyes averted again. 

They share a breath that lingers and bubbles between the two of them and threatens to burst, Sibella looks like she has half a mind to run away.

“I don’t… I don’t want to listen to him anymore. I’m tired of it. Of feeling like this.”

“Like what?”

“Never you mind,” she says, back on the defense like she so often is.

“...Sibella, you don’t have to tell me,” he says, finding the two of them in the mirror across the room. They certainly look ridiculous, sitting a foot apart, talking to a wall, holding hands. They’re a portrait of naivete, of lovers toeing the line.

Something Monty knows about Sibella is that she doesn’t care to bare her heart to him, though he does to her too often. This isn’t to say she never has. He’s comforted her before through many things, but he’s never been able to pry open her words, to find the truth behind them. She’s never liked it very much. Other men call it deceit. He calls it defense. Sometimes she calls it one of her lovable character traits and pinches his cheek. Sometimes she calls it weakness.

“I don’t?”

“Not a word. I know you well enough.”

When Monty looks at her, she’s combing out her hair, tangling it in her fingers, pulling at it, and combing it, over and over. It’s all painfully mechanical, like she hardly knows she’s doing it. When she notices he's staring she spares him a smile.

“Monty, do you really?” 

“Like no one else could.”

“Then distract me,” she says, untangling her hand from her gold-spun hair and laying it on his thigh, light as a feather, a wordless suggestion, a breath, a risk. He looks at it, looks at her, words dripping with desperation, searching for an escape, longing to run. Rather than indulge her, he lifts her hand and presses a delicate kiss to her palm.

“Shall I take you to dinner first?”

**Author's Note:**

> I know this was mostly dialogue, I'm sorry! I was entirely sleep deprived while I wrote this, so I hope it's good! Thanks for reading!


End file.
